“That you Captain? Sure,sure I remember–I still hear youlecturing at me on the intercom, Keep your guns up, Burnsie!and then screaming, Stop shooting, for crissake, Burnsie,those are friendlies! But crissake, Captain,I’d already started, burstafter burst, little black pajamas jumpingand falling . . . and remember that pilotwho’d bailed out over the North,how I shredded him down to catgut on his strings?one of his slant eyes, a pieceof his smile, sail past meevery night right after the sleeping pill . . .

“It was onlythat I loved the soundof them. I guess I just lovedthe feel of them sparkin’ off my hands . . .”

3

On the television screen:

Do you have a body that sweats?Sweat that has odor?False teeth clanging into your breakfast?Case of the dread?Headache so perpetual it may outlive you?Armpits sprouting hair?Piles so huge you don’t need a chair to sit at a table?

We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed . . .

4

In the Twentieth Century of my trespass on earth,having exterminated one billion heathens,heretics, Jews, Moslems, witches, mystical seekers,black men, Asians, and Christian brothers,every one of them for his own good,

a whole continent of red men for living in unnatural communityand at the same time having relations with the land,one billion species of animals for being sub-human,and ready to take on the bloodthirsty creatures from the other planets,I, Christian man, groan out this testament of my last will.

I give my blood fifty parts polystyrene,twenty-five parts benzene, twenty-five parts good old gasoline,to the last bomber pilot aloft, that there shall be one acrein the dull world where the kissing flower may bloom,which kisses you so long your bones explode under its lips.

My tongue goes to the Secretary of the Deadto tell the corpses, “I’m sorry, fellows,the killing was just one of those thingsdifficult to pre-visualize–like a cow,say, getting hit by lightning.”

My stomach, which has digestedfour hundred treaties giving the Indianseternal right to their land, I give to the Indians,I throw in my lungs which have spent four hundred yearssucking in good faith on peace pipes.

My soul I leave to the beethat he may sting it and die, my brainto the fly, his back the hysterical green color of slime,that he may suck on it and die, my flesh to the advertising man,the anti-prostitute, who loathes human flesh for money.

I assign my crooked backboneto the dice maker, to chop up into dice,for casting lots as to who shall see his own bloodon his shirt front and who his brother’s,for the race isn’t to the swift but to the crooked.

To the last man surviving on earthI give my eyelids worn out by fear, to wearin his long nights of radiation and silence,so that his eyes can’t close, for regretis like tears seeping through closed eyelids.

I give the emptiness my hand: the pinkie picks no more noses,slag clings to the black stick of the ring finger,a bit of flame jets from the tip of the fuck-you finger,the first finger accuses the heart, which has vanished,on the thumb stump wisps of smoke ask a ride into the emptiness.

In the Twentieth Century of my nightmareon earth, I swear on my chromium testiclesto this testamentand last willof my iron will, my fear of love, my itch for money, and my madness.

5

In the ditchsnakes crawl cool pathsover the rotted thigh, the toe bonestwitch in the smell of burnt rubber,the bellyopens like a poison nightflower,the tongue has evaporated,the nostrilhairs sprinkle themselves with yellowish-white dust,the five flames at the endof each hand have gone out, a mosquitosips a last meal from this plate of serenity.

And the fly,the last nightmare, hatches himself.

6

I ranmy neck broken I ranholding my head up with both hands I ranthinking the flamesthe flames may burn the oboebut listen buddy boy they can’t touch the notes!

7

A few boneslie about in the smoke of bones.

Membranes,effigies pressed into grass,mummy windings,desquamations,sags incinerated mattresses gave back to the world,memories left in mirrors on whorehouse ceilings,angel’s wingsflagged down into the snows of yesteryear,

kneelon the scorched earthin the shapes of men and animals:

do not let this last hour pass,do not remove this last, poison cup from our lips.

And a wind holdingthe cries of love-making from all our nights and daysmoves among the stones, huntingfor two twined skeletons to blow its last cry across.

I usually listen to some wonderful/horrible “pop cardio” mix on Pandora when I run, but the last few weeks have been tough, even with running, even with eating right, even with picking up the phone Read more…